In French patent application No. 85.16093 filed Oct. 28, 1985 in the name of the present inventor, published under No. 2,589,034, there is described an organic conditioner and a process for its production, for enriching soil and for contributing to cultures the nutritive elements necessary for their development. The process for producing this conditioner essentially comprises:
(a) collecting animal manure, such as sheep, cattle or horse manure;
(b) collecting vegetable wastes, such as corn cobs, vegetable ensilage wastes or tree or branch trimmings;
(c) pulverizing the vegetable wastes;
(d) mixing the animal manures and the pulverized vegetable wastes;
(e) moistening the mixture or the components before mixing;
(f) preparing windrows of the moistened mixture in side by side fashion in a composting area;
(g) ventilating each windrow by intermittent aspiration of air through the windrows;
(h) controlling the temperature at the center of the windrows and recovering the compost at the end of fermentation when the temperature decreases below a predetermined level;
(i) recycling the thus recovered compost while mixing and preparing new windrows therefrom in a ripening area;
(j) ventilating these new windrows by blowing air for assuring a complementary fermentation and a first drying;
(k) subjecting the compost to a complementary drying; and
(l) ripening the compost while subjecting it to a final grinding step.
Preferably, the animal manures and the ground vegetable wastes are mixed in a weight proportion of manure to vegetable waste of between 30% and 50%. Further, after drying, the compost is subjected to a final grinding or crushing which, in particular, reduces its average granulometry or particle size to an approximate value of between 0.1 mm and 3 mm.
Reference is had to the above mentioned French patent application for more details on this production and on the installation and equipment used, and the specification of this patent is incorporated herein by reference.
This production leads to an organic conditioner, rich in organic materials, nitrogen and mineral products, and the fermentation of which is complete.
The applicant has discovered that this conditioner may be used as a water regeneration product, particularly for aquarium water, and that it gives remarkable and unexpected results on both animal and plant life in the aquarium, while reestablishing the natural cycle of nitrogen by transforming toxic nitrites into non-toxic nitrates.
Thus, a primary object of the present invention is to provide a new product for biological regeneration of water, and more generally for an aquatic medium, capable of transforming the nitrites contained in the medium into nitrates which can be directly assimilated by aquatic plants.